Traditional manufacturing techniques prefer uniformity in the manufactured goods being produced. Unfortunately, within a product design, specific portions of the design may require variability that would normally preclude use of single-piece manufacturing techniques. Accordingly, a product may be composed of several pieces or components joined together to accommodate these variations. For example, in clothing construction, two or more layers of fabric, plastic, leather, or other materials may be joined together along a seam, which stitches the different components together. Great care is taken during product design with respect to placement (e.g., inseam, center back seam, side seam, etc.) and type (e.g., plain, lapped, abutted, etc.) of the seams used to create a garment that fits properly. The result is a garment with several different component pieces joined together by several seams into a single article of clothing.
Additive manufacturing allow traditionally separate portions of a product to be made without seams or welds. While additive manufacturing techniques can eliminate some of the seams between similar components in a product, some required variability cannot be eliminated by existing techniques that assume fabric uniformity. Moreover, when producing a product using an additive manufacturing process, the product design itself is often changed by the very materials used to manufacture the design. Thus, traditionally, component materials are selected by the manufacturer afterwards to match a desired design. Alternatively, if use of a particular material is desired, the design must incorporate that material from the beginning of the design process. Accordingly, any existing seamless product produced using currently available additive manufacturing techniques is limited to a single material selected for exhibiting properties consistent with the target design.